Mass Effect 3

Of course any Shepard should care at least a little bit about Earth regardless of his or her own origin. That wasn't the issue (from my perspective). The issue was that BioWare didn't do enough to make me, the player, care about Earth. They just assumed "Oh, we live on Earth, so everyone will automatically be emotionally invested!" but that's never really worked for me. Even in Star Trek movies, for example, I kind of roll my eyes when the inevitable threat to Earth pops up. At this point it's become an overused trope, more cliched and boring than gripping and emotional.

Well it's a bit of a catch 22, no? Either they spend a lot of time on Earth and developing your attachment to it, the people and the fictional world there OR develop the story out in space with all the alien races, colonies and mysterious unknown worlds. They can't really do both in the time allotted.

Personally, while I was always curious about ME's version of future Earth, I never lamented not going there until ME3. I mean when you get right down to it, future Earth is just modern Earth with bigger skyscrapers, flying cars and automatic sliding doors everywhere. I think Bioware quite rightly took it as read that most players were already familiar enough with the planet they currently inhabit and instead focused on the more interesting stuff. Which, let's be honest, is where the actual story is. Even then, for those that were curious, there's plenty of info in the codex to give a better understanding.

Whichever way you choose to look at it, Earth is a place where 10 billion people live. That alone should be enough for ANY Shepard give a crap. Failing that, it's the place where Anderson is and if you don't care about that, them you *must* have been indoctrinated after all.

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There's a difference between "don't care about Anderson" and "have more important things to worry about". Especially since he's this weird out-of-continuity not-the-Council-member Anderson.

Unless I'm misremembering, I'm pretty sure it's referred to several times if Anderson was the original human councillor. But yeah, I know what you're saying, it does rather break the immersion when supposedly big decisions have next to no impact later on. Case-in-point, my renegade engie just did the rachni mission...an utterly meaningless decision, no?

Also, whatever happened to the all human council and the citadel becoming something of an oppressive dictatorship? I get that there are technical limitations, but they really should have thought ahead with some of these options.

I wouldn't have minded much if they'd ignored the council member choice in ME2. It always seemed weird that Shepard alone gets to decide that. They could have easily and believably written it off with "Sorry Shepard, but the voters decided differently."

Anderson resigning and going back to the millitary on his own without Shepard's input is fine, but they should have at least addressed it in dialogue rather than rely on the codex and crappy tie-in books.

Just completed the "Fatal Error" match in the arena on my second try. That was a pain the ass. I think those Geth Primes were harder to take out than the other enemies in that last wave.

The Banshee went down quickly and then I left Grunt and Wrex to soak up the hits and damage while I retreated to another corner. Then I took out the Atlas, Primes, and Praetorians from afar while they were focused on trying to kill the Krogans.

Also, I love that the "Shifty Cow" appears on the scoreboard after getting over 9999 points.

My adept got her ass handed to her about 5 times before finally beating Fatal Error, always in the last round. Damn squishy class... And yeah, I finally had to bring in the krogan to tip things in my favor.

My adept got her ass handed to her about 5 times before finally beating Fatal Error, always in the last round. Damn squishy class... And yeah, I finally had to bring in the krogan to tip things in my favor.

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Buh... buh... you had the Krogan available. Doesn't that automatically lock out all other party possibilities?

Y'know, I barely ever use Wrex and Grunt in ME1/ME2. Wrex didn't exactly endear himself to my original paragon Shep when he shot Fist without my consent, and so I was afraid always after that that he was going to pull that crap at later points as well (he doesn't, but still...) And Grunt I've always found a little... bland. Along with Jacob, I always have to force myself to take him along on missions. I guess part of it is that I've never been a big fan of warrior races in in SF/F. I've got the same apathy for Klingons, for instance.

It's probably not too unlikely. I doubt many aliens immigrated to Earth (which is still a bit of a backwater compared to the rest of the galaxy) in the thirty years or so between the First Contact War and ME3.

Yeah and even if there were a significant Asari or Salarian population on Earth, why exactly would we expect to see any of them hanging around the Alliance's military headquarters? It's not exactly a tourist city, yes?

^ Indeed, that's my point. I'm not surprised we didn't see any non-humans during our time on Earth (before it fell) since it was pretty much entirely at an Alliance base. But to take that and declaratively state there isn't a single non-human on the whole planet is a little bit silly. The same could be said for Sur'Kesh and Thessia, but we spent the whole time there at military bases (and a temple) as well.

That's a fallacy. Of course every place in every piece of fiction is by definition fictional. Of course even real people become fictional when they're used as characters in a novel or a movie. In a way, the Earth of Mass Effect is not anymore "the real Earth" than the Earth of Sense and Sensibility is. But the attachment, the feelings of compassion, those that make it possible to feel any connection to fictional characters, are real. The Earth of Mass Effectis a fictional place, that's true, but it is also Earth, and we feel a connection to it - except our psychopathic friends - because Earth is everything we know.

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The difference between "Sense and Sensibility" and "Mass Effect 3" is Sense and Sensibility was never about the Earth. At all. Do movie or game audiences always go into a storyline and say "I care about this because it has an Earth in it"? I know I don't. Heck, Star Wars doesn't even have an Earth, and that's one of the most successful science fiction franchises of all time.

And they way describe the "connection" people have towards Earth is a hollow one at best. Instead of actually implementing Earth into Mass Effect 3's story in a meaningful way, the writers literally fell on the "gamers will care, because they live on Earth too!" trope. When you push everything down to a planet that up until this point hasn't had any significance to the Mass Effect series, you're pretty much fighting for something that's only unique to this game, and I personally feel that was a mistake. We got to know so much of all the other species of the galaxy, all their different cultures and how they're so different from us that the final part in this epic series is to save the planet Earth.

And my final point, which I really think speaks volumes in how a lot of Science Fiction series today don't seem to catch that the first two Mass Effect games did quite well,

EARTH IS NOT WHAT MAKES MASS EFFECT UNIQUE.

Halo has you rescue Earth specifically from an evil alien race on many occasions, Command & Conquer has you save the Earth from a hidden alien menace, Resistance is about humans fighting alien invaders, ect. There are plenty of games out there that have Earth as the central target for opposing alien races, and many of them do a better job at making the players care for Earth much better than Mass Effect does.

The first two Mass Effect games did such a great job at breaking the reliance on Earth storyline and it really helped set it apart from all the other action/scifi games that were out there already. For the third and final installment of the series (Or Shepard series), it disappoints me to no end that it all came down to "Earth is special and in danger!" for Shepard's final story.

But to take that and declaratively state there isn't a single non-human on the whole planet is a little bit silly.

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With the Asari culture that has been open to relationships with members of different races since the first game, even to the point where the species has developed derogative slangs against 'pure bloods', it's much more plausible to believe that there are other races on Thessia than there are aliens on Earth.

Heck, if you actually read the codex entries, Earth is hardly the center point of the Alliance. It was Arcturus Station that held the high ranked leaders and was the center of the Alliance military.... Which begs the question as to why Shepard was sent to Earth instead of the station where the Alliance leaders and parliament resided.

BioWare did everything they could, short of altering the original Codex entries, to brush aside that whole thing about Earth not being the heart of the Alliance. The universe became less unique with each game, sadly.

BioWare did everything they could, short of altering the original Codex entries, to brush aside that whole thing about Earth not being the heart of the Alliance. The universe became less unique with each game, sadly.

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I'm perfectly willing to ascribe that to incompetence, not maliciousness, on the part of Mac Walters.